35 – Maqam (Tarz) Shah Meyu (“He Comes, He Graces Us with His Presence”)

Range: C, D, E (E♭), F, G, A.

Variable notes: E.

Time signatures in the metric sections: 10/8.

Tuning: Haft Dastan or Barz (C, C, G)

It is one of the kalam maqams (sacred melodic-modal pieces in the tanbur repertoire of the Yarsan, or Ahl-e Haqq) and is performed in the manner of a tarji’-band (a poem with a recurring refrain) by the kalam singer and those seated in the jam (the Yarsan ritual gathering). Its refrain (sarband) is the first couplet, and it is repeated by the assembled group each time after the kalam singer:

Yar dida-giani, Shah meyu, Shah meyu

Palash va didam ba bayu, ba bayu

How auspicious and blessed it is that the dear Beloved is arriving

Come, so that I may place the dust of your feet upon my eyes.

One very noteworthy point about this maqam is that, although it is not one of the majlesi maqams (secular maqams of social gatherings), Kay Khosrow, Siavash and Rostam are mentioned in it. Heydar Kaki believes that Iran’s national figures are among the holy persons of the Yarsan faith and are referred to many times in the Yarsan daftars (books of sacred verse). That is, great figures such as Kay Khosrow, Siavash and Rostam are counted by the Yarsan as members of the Yarsan community, and in fact the references to these figures served mainly to praise figures within the faith. According to Ali Akbar Moradi, this maqam heralds the coming of the Divine Truth. The text, however, reads as though one of the great figures were speaking of his own passing from jameh to jameh (from “garment” to “garment,” i.e. from one bodily incarnation to the next). The poem of this maqam is likewise transmitted from Darvish Nowruz Sourani, about whom more was said earlier.